How Relicmark works

Relicmark publishes trading-card categories together with what a shared ledger records about them. Each card page is built from a pinned snapshot of one ledger record and says what that record shows, together with Relicmark’s own checklist and grade-reference checks, and no more.

Relicmark composite price

Each card page leads with one number: the Relicmark composite price for that exact card and grade. It is an estimate built only from source-linked sales. It is not an appraisal, an offer or an authentication of any card.

• What counts. Verified sales in US dollars from the last 18 months. A sale is verified when the research desk has re-checked it at its source. Sales in other currencies are listed but never counted. Relicmark does not convert currencies itself; a price cited from a sales tracker is in US dollars as that site reports it, which can be the tracker’s own conversion of a sale made in another currency.
• What does not count. Sales still pending a source check; sales older than 18 months; outliers (below 0.4 times or above 2.5 times the median of the other sales, once there are at least three others); sales held because their source has not given written permission to reuse its records; and records excluded as a different card or grade, a non-sale or a sale whose price could not be confirmed (for example a best offer where only the list price is shown). Each stays on the page with its status and source link. Asking prices are listings and never count.
• The number. The weighted median of the counted sales. Each sale weighs 10% less for every completed month of age.
• The range. With four or more counted sales, the middle half of them (25th to 75th percentile). With two or three, the lowest and the highest. With one sale there is no range.
• Confidence. A count, not a probability. High: at least 8 counted sales in the last 90 days. Medium: at least 3 in the last 180 days. Low: anything less.
• Stale. Every counted sale is more than 180 days old, so the figure may be out of date. The page shows the date of the newest counted sale.
• No composite yet. No sale qualifies. Relicmark shows no price rather than a guess, and says why.
• Coverage. Relicmark records a sample of sales per card (ten or fewer on most cards), not every sale ever made.

Every figure carries the time the prices were computed and the date of the newest counted sale. The same record is available as data files and through the ChatGPT connection.

The sections below describe the original shared-ledger snapshot that each page keeps for the record. For prices, its comparison rule is superseded by the composite above.

Card categories, not cards

A card category is one card identity at one grade category, for example a 2016-17 Upper Deck Series 2 Young Guns #451 at PSA 10. A page describes the category. It does not describe, authenticate or offer any particular physical card.

Identity

Each page lists the name, item type, season, set, card number, variant and grade category, each with the ledger’s evidence status: “supplied” (recorded by the contributor, not independently confirmed), “confirmed” (confirmed by an authorized reviewer) or “pending” (unknown). The original hockey categories use manufacturer checklists. William Nylander uses a manufacturer article for the set and subset plus a PSA reference for the card number. The added Pokémon and baseball categories cite issuer SEC filings, with any normalization explained separately. These sources have different roles: an issuer report is not a manufacturer checklist or independent grade authentication.

Grade-category references

A grade names a grading company’s category, not an authenticated physical card. Each page identifies its source role.

• PSA per-card reference (307 categories): a PSA price-guide line or certificate reference for the identity.
• PSA grading standard (450 categories): a category definition where no per-card PSA reference was established; the page states that limit.
• PSA grading standard, no PSA page opened (20 categories): the page cites PSA’s grading standard and says that no PSA page for the card has been opened.
• Issuer-reported grade (15 categories): the grade is attributed to an issuer SEC filing. The manufacturer and direct grading-authority reference fields are null unless separately supported. These include PSA and SGC categories; they are not independent authentication.

No page claims a grade for any particular physical card.

The shared ledger

Each card page is built from one shared ledger record, and the card directory never publishes two records with the same identity; the ledger itself does not merge records. Contributors record observations of three kinds, always kept apart: completed sales, asking prices (which are not sales) and accepted offers (which are not confirmed prices). Amounts stay in the currency in which they were recorded, and the pages never convert them.

The ledger publishes a current comparison of recorded completed sales only when its own rule is met at the snapshot, and each snapshot states the rule. At the latest snapshots the rule was: at least 3 eligible completed sales within 30 days, checked within 7 days. When the rule is not met, the page says so; the ledger may then show an older comparison, computed by the same rule as of when the shown revision was created and marked as older (status stale). A comparison is the ledger’s own figure; it is not a valuation, a fair value or a guaranteed price, and where it includes USD sales the ledger uses the conversion reference shown on each USD row.

Comparison statuses

Each card page states the ledger’s comparison status at its snapshot, in these words; the statistics count the pages with each status.

insufficient

Insufficient completed-sale evidence for a comparison.

stale

Too few recent completed sales; only an older comparison exists.

current

The ledger published a CAD comparison of recorded completed sales.

conditional

The ledger published a comparison, but only conditionally: the identity or some matches are unconfirmed.

conflicted

The comparison is withheld while evidence is disputed or conflicting.

capacity_limited

The comparison is withheld because the record exceeds the summary capacity.

stale: the rule is not met at the snapshot, because too few eligible completed sales are recent enough or were checked recently enough, but it was met when the shown revision was created.

Challenges and reviews

An observation can be challenged. An authorized administrator other than the challenger and the contributor then decides whether it is excluded from the comparison or kept. Pages show each challenge’s reason and the decision.

Revisions and history

Every change to a ledger record creates a new revision; earlier revisions are kept and nothing is erased. Each card page shows one retained revision, named on the page, and lists the record’s history up to it.

Pinned snapshots and updates

Card pages are not live. Each is built from a snapshot of the ledger record, taken through the ledger’s own read function at the time the page states, and it changes only when a new card directory release is installed. Later changes to the record do not appear until then. The release history lists the releases.

What pages never claim

• No physical card, certificate, grade or ownership is authenticated.
• No page converts a price between currencies or offers an appraisal. The shared-ledger sections show amounts only as the ledger recorded them; the price-history composite on a card page is a labelled estimate from source-reported sales, shown only when its rule is met.
• Asking prices and offers are not sales.

Test data

The ledger is in a closed test. Records and evidence marked as synthetic test data are never published here.

Data and feeds

The card directory is also available as JSON and CSV, with an Atom feed of card pages: see Data.